the great danger to be apprehended is from
burning the liquid after it is made to the consistence of molasses,
since, when this is done, it is impossible to convert it into sugar; a
tough, black, sticky mass, of little value, being the result. Indeed,
constant care and attention is required to produce a first-rate
article: for though sugar may be made in almost any way where the sap
can be procured, yet unless the strictest care is observed in the
processes, in gathering and boiling the sap, clarifying the syrup, and
in converting the syrup to sugar, a dirty inferior article will be
made, instead of the beautiful and delicious sweet which the maple,
properly treated, is sure to yield.

The quantity of sugar produced in a year varies considerably from the
same trees. The cause of this difference is to be found in the depth
of snow, continued cold, or a sudden transition from cold to warm,
thus abridging the period of sugar-making. A sharp frost at night,
with clear warm days, is the most favorable to the sugar-maker.
Perhaps four pounds of sugar from a tree may be a pretty fair average
of seasons generally, although we have known the growth to exceed six
pounds, and sink as low as three. A man will take care of one hundred
trees easily, during the season of sugar, which usually lasts from
about the middle of March into April, perhaps employing him twenty
days in the whole. Dr. Jackson, in his Report of the Maine Geological
Survey, gives the following instances of the production of sugar in
that State:--

Lbs. of Sugar.
At the Forks of the Kennebec, twelve persons made 3,605
On No. 1, 2d range, one man and a boy made 1,000
In Farmington, Mr. Titcomb made 1,500
In Moscow, thirty families made 10,500
In Bingham, twenty-five families made 9,000
In Concord, thirty families made 11,000

A cold and dry winter is followed with a greater yield of sugar from
the maple than a season very moist and variable. Trees growing in wet
places will yield more sap, but much less sugar from the same
quantity, than trees on more elevated and drier ground. The red and
white maple will yield sap, but it has much less of the saccharine
quality than the rock or sugar maple.

The work begins usually about the first of March. The tree will yield
its sap long before vegetation appears from the b